welsh hills again

9th April, 9th day of the project.  I think I got it a bit wrong today.  I went to yoga this morning, which was an excellent idea and helped to make me feel I was well on the way to recovery.  Then this afternoon I headed out to the garden for a small session on the project.  The first mistake I made was that I hadn't decided in advance what to do.  This meant I was assailed from all sides by things I could do and as a result ended up doing too much.  The second mistake was to be too aware of the beauty and order of the garden belonging to the friends we saw this weekend!    I know their garden is much smaller than ours but it still a fair size and very intensively gardened.  Walking around yesterday with my friend I was so impressed by the weedfree beds, the tidy raised beds waiting for their vegetables and most of all by the clean and orderly greenhouse already full of the new season's growing things.  I know our friends are very good ...

We were away overnight staying with some friends and got back home about five o' clock.  Normally I would make a cup of tea, have half an hour with the newspaper and then get on with making a meal.  Today as we were driving home from Derbyshire I was thinking about what I might do that would count for day 8 of the 100 day project.  I decided on a little bit more cutting back.  I am still coughing although I am sure I am getting better, slowly.  Cutting back is quick and easy and the garden is full of tatty growth which has been blasted by the cold weather or is the dead growth from last year. It is a quarter to six.  The low evening sun is shining through the dead stems of last year's phlox.  I cut that back and the euphorbia next to it.  Small job and it does reveal the weed and the grot grown through the bed but that is fine.  Today I am not weeding and today I am not despairing!  Today I am cutting back the phlox.  Tick. ...

Ok, now it is time to actually do something myself instead of getting other people to do things!  I am still coughing and bunged up but I persuade myself that doing something outside, however small, will make me feel better.  I like being outside and I wonder if this long, cold, dark and miserable winter has left me short of vitamin D.  First of all I cut back the other artemisia, meaning that this job can come off my list.  If I stick to my resolution only to have five things on a list that means something else can go on.  Time taken, about ten minutes.  This leaves a few minutes for admiring this hellebore being blown about in the wind and the weak sun. Then I decide that the big task of the day (and by big I mean little) will be to dig out some dandelions from the side garden.  And this is the beauty of the 100dayproject for me.  I have decided that doing one thing counts, so, despite the fact that digging six dandelions and four creeping ...

Here we are, got to day 3!  Today the snow has all gone and the sun is shining.  It is bright but it is also cold.  Still coughing and spluttering I decided that I must be able to do something today.  Ian has been working on repairing the raised beds so I had to go out to look at that and admire it.  The beds have been falling apart for a while and it is amazing to see at least one of them looking like it is meant again!  It is not so noticeable in the summer when the beds are full but in the winter the collapsed corners and the gaps in the sides have been very visible.  I might post some pictures when he is finished although it seems a little like cheating to pinch his achievements instead of accomplishing something of my own! There is a ring of tiny daffodils in the kitchen garden.  When they were planted years ago there was a pear tree in the centre but pears don't really like it up here.  Apples are very happy and we have huge apple ...